1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computer-based methods and apparatus for processing text and, more specifically, to computer-based methods and apparatus for transforming text according to a set of heuristic rules.
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but the copyright owner reserves all other copyright rights whatsoever.
2. Related Art
In the field of computerized text processing, there are numerous applications where "raw" text needs to be processed according to a set of guidelines and/or rules. One particular example of the "raw" text is the full name or the long case name (LCN) of a lawsuit. Typically, lawsuits are referred to by an abbreviated form of the LCN. This abbreviated form is referred to as the short case name (SCN).
The SCN of a lawsuit generally consists of the last names of parties who are persons and the full names (using abbreviations) of parties that are organizations. Only the first named plaintiff and defendant are listed separated by "V.", an abbreviation for versus. The general principles for proper citation rules, forms, and abbreviations useful in the creation of SCNs are contained in A Uniform System of Citation (14th Edition, 1986), which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. This publication is commonly called the "Blue Book" and is published and distributed by the Harvard Law Review Association.
Using human editors to transform a large volume of LCNs into SCNs is time-consuming, tedious and prone to errors and inconsistency. Therefore, there is a need for a computerized system and method for transforming LCNs to SCNs.